Fort Sill in the seventies...
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#16: Re: Fort Sill in the seventies... Author: binder001,  PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:30 pm
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re: the two-tone camouflage paint jobs. About the mid-1970's the Army was looking at camouflage paint for combat vehicles. The Seventh Army had their specific camouflage system, the system of Sand with olive green, red brown and black areas. Ft Knox fiddled with a scheme of khaki drab with "rough edge" black bands/patches, and Ft. Sill used a scheme of forest green with "smooth edged" light sand bands. Meanwhile the MERDC patterns were under test with the 2nd Armored Div at Ft. as part of Project MASSTER (Modern Army Selected Systems Test, Evaluation and Review). I remember photographing a number of vehicles and guns at Sill in their camouflage. The MERDC patterns replaced all these non-standard schemes and then the NATO three-color camoflage paint replaced that. A realtively colorful time in the US Army! The "Ft.Sill" camo didn't catch on because there was sand mixed in the paint, so it had to be done by hand. Too bad, because it looked pretty sharp.

Gary
#17: Re: Fort Sill in the seventies... Author: Doug_Kibbey, Location: The Great Satan PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:40 pm
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- binder001
re: the two-tone camouflage paint jobs. About the mid-1970's the Army was looking at camouflage paint for combat vehicles. The Seventh Army had their specific camouflage system, the system of Sand with olive green, red brown and black areas. Ft Knox fiddled with a scheme of khaki drab with "rough edge" black bands/patches, and Ft. Sill used a scheme of forest green with "smooth edged" light sand bands. Meanwhile the MERDC patterns were under test with the 2nd Armored Div at Ft. as part of Project MASSTER (Modern Army Selected Systems Test, Evaluation and Review). I remember photographing a number of vehicles and guns at Sill in their camouflage. The MERDC patterns replaced all these non-standard schemes and then the NATO three-color camoflage paint replaced that. A realtively colorful time in the US Army! The "Ft.Sill" camo didn't catch on because there was sand mixed in the paint, so it had to be done by hand. Too bad, because it looked pretty sharp.

Gary


I wonder if any of those are ones we evaluated. At the Armor Board in '72-'73, we evaluated several schemes for tanks. One was a desert scheme (hard to test around Ft. Knox, but it looked wicked cool, we all called it "Afrika Corps Sand" and thought every tank in the Army should be that color immediately, regardless of theater...it was much like, or identical to what went to war in Desert Storm) another was a four color version that included a purple shade....inspired by some Swedish pattern, and it was pretty effective around Ft. Knox. We'd test them by having observers try to detect them static and on approach from very distant ranges and note the average range at detection, controlled for time of day, shade, etc.

I have abnormal color vision and this was actually an advantage in detection, so I was relieved of this observer duty very quickly. It was boring anyway....

The Sheridan you see alternate in the banner at the top if you use the AFV motif for your Com-Central display is in an early camo color, but obscured for "style" for this forum display.
#18: Re: Fort Sill in the seventies... Author: binder001,  PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:27 pm
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Back in the 70's I photographed some of those two-color schemes at Ft. Knox and Ft. Sill as well as a few variations of MERDC. I sold all the slides to Jim Loop in 1984. Don't know what happened to those photos from there.

Gary
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